Archbishop of Canterbury - OrthodoxWiki Archbishop of Canterbury Jump to: navigation , search The Archbishop of Canterbury is "the primate of all England" within the Church of England and the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion . His see is at Canterbury Cathedral in Kent, England and his residence is Lambeth Palace in London. Contents 5 External link The current archbishop The current Archbishop of Canterbury is the Right Honorable and Most Reverend Justin Welby, 105th holder of the Chair of St. Augustine of Canterbury . The previous archbishop Rowan Douglas Williams was born in Wales on June 14 , 1950. He studied theology at Christ's College of Cambridge University where he doctoral work on the Russian Orthodox Church and particularly the thought of Vladimir Lossky . For some years he was a professor of theology at Oxford University. In 1992 he was elevated to Anglican Bishop of Monmouth, and then in 2000 he was made Anglican Archbishop of Wales. In 2002 he was elevated to Archbishop of Canterbury, from which he retired in 2012. A prolific writer, Dr. Williams has published books in theology, spirituality, Christian history and poetry.

Of particular interest to Orthodox Christians might be two books of meditations on icons , entitled The Dwelling of the Light: Praying With Icons of Christ ( ISBN 0802827780 ) and Ponder These Things: Praying With Icons of the Virgin ( ISBN 1580511244 ). He is also the editor of the book Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political Theology ( ISBN 056708650X ). History Christianity reached England by the middle of the second century. As St. Bede relates in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People , in 156 a British King by the name of Lucius wrote to Eleutherus, bishop of Rome, asking to be made a Christian. (Bk 1, Chap 4) With the work of missionaries throughout the first few centuries AD, Christianity spread and took root. In 596 Pope Gregory the Great decided to send a mission to the Anglo-Saxons in the British Isles. He chose a to send a group of Benedictine monks, under the leadership of St. Augustine of Canterbury (not to be confused with Augustine of Hippo ).

Augustine and his fellow monks arrived in Kent in 597 and eventually a see city was set up in Canterbury, Augustine being the first Archbishop. It is said that that when they arrived they were "carrying a silver cross and an image of Jesus Christ painted on a board, which thus became, so far as we know, 'Canterbury's first icon .'" (Lesser Feasts and Fasts, p. 252) With Augustine and those who came after him, the British Isles were slowly put under the authority of the Church of Rome. As with the rest of the Western Church, this authority increased over the next 500 years. Up until the time of the Anglican Reformation, the Archbishop of Canterbury was an appointee of the Bishop of Rome . Thus, at the time of the Great Schism the Church in England went along with the Western side of the break, accepting Papal supremacy and the Filioque . In the 16th century, England, influenced both by political factors and the Continental Reformation, broke away from Rome and became an independent Church.

Thus, the list of successive Archbishops of Canterbury, can be categorized according to three groups: Orthodox Archbishops, Roman Catholic Archbishops and Reformation Archbishops (see below). Archbishops of Canterbury throughout history Orthodox Archbishops of Canterbury About Rowan Williams About rowan williams Bibliography About Rowan Williams Rowan Douglas Williams was born in Swansea, south Wales on 14 June 1950, into a Welsh-speaking family, and was educated at Dynevor School in Swansea and Christ's College Cambridge where he studied theology. He studied for his doctorate – in the theology of Vladimir Lossky, a leading figure in Russian twentieth-century religious thought – at Wadham College Oxford, taking his DPhil in 1975. After two years as a lecturer at the College of the Resurrection, near Leeds, he was ordained deacon in Ely Cathedral before returning to Cambridge. From 1977, he spent nine years in academic and parish work in Cambridge: first at Westcott House, being ordained priest in 1978, and from 1980 as curate at St George's, Chesterton.

In 1983 he was appointed as a lecturer in Divinity in the university, and the following year became dean and chaplain of Clare College. 1986 saw a return to Oxford now as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church; he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1989, and became a fellow of the British Academy in 1990. He is also an accomplished poet and translator. In 1991 Professor Williams accepted election and consecration as bishop of Monmouth, a diocese on the Welsh borders, and in 1999 on the retirement of Archbishop Alwyn Rice Jones he was elected Archbishop of Wales, one of the 38 primates of the Anglican Communion. Thus it was that, in July 2002, with eleven years' experience as a diocesan bishop and three as a leading primate in the Communion, Archbishop Williams was confirmed on 2 December 2002 as the 104th bishop of the See of Canterbury: the first Welsh successor to St Augustine of Canterbury and the first since the mid-thirteenth century to be appointed from beyond the English Church.

Dr Williams is acknowledged internationally as an outstanding theological writer, scholar and teacher. He has been involved in many theological, ecumenical and educational commissions. He has written extensively across a very wide range of related fields of professional study – philosophy, theology (especially early and patristic Christianity), spirituality and religious aesthetics – as evidenced by his bibliography. He has also written throughout his career on moral, ethical and social topics and, since becoming archbishop, has turned his attention increasingly on contemporary cultural and interfaith issues. As Archbishop of Canterbury his principal responsibilities are however pastoral – leading the life and witness of the Church of England in general and his own diocese in particular by his teaching and oversight, and promoting and guiding the communion of the world-wide Anglican Church by the globally recognized ministry of unity that attaches to the office of bishop of the see of Canterbury. His interests include music, fiction and languages. In 1981 Dr Williams married Jane Paul, a lecturer in theology, whom he met while living and working in Cambridge. They have a daughter and a son.

Chronology archbishop of Canterbury | Britannica.com Archbishop of Canterbury See Article History Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Church of England , the primate of all England and archbishop of the ecclesiastical province of Canterbury, which approximately includes the area of England south of the former counties of Cheshire and Yorkshire. In addition to a palace in Canterbury , the archbishop has a seat at Lambeth Palace in London . Archbishops of Canterbury Cosmo Gordon Lang (from 1942, Baron Lang of Lambeth) 1928-42 Geoffrey Francis Fisher (from 1961, Baron Fisher of Lambeth) 1945-61 Rowan Williams 2002- The first archbishop of Canterbury was St. Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604/605), a Benedictine monk who was sent from Rome by Pope Gregory I to convert the Anglo-Saxons in England. Augustine arrived in 597 and was well received by Aethelberht I , king of Kent , who gave him a place to live in Canterbury and permitted him to preach. The Reformation caused no break in the continuity of the office.

Thomas Cranmer (archbishop 1533–56) accepted the Act of Supremacy (1534) that made the English sovereign , rather than the pope , the head of the Church of England. Although no individual is recognized as being the head of all the churches that constitute the Anglican Communion , the archbishop of Canterbury is considered the senior bishop . He presides, as host and chairman, over the Lambeth Conference , a decennial meeting of the bishops of the Anglican Communion. Learn More in these related articles: Church of England English national church that traces its history back to the arrival of Christianity in Britain during the 2nd century. It has been the original church of the Anglican Communion since the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. As the successor of the Anglo-Saxon and medieval English church, it has... Canterbury (England, United Kingdom) historic town and surrounding city (local authority) in the administrative and historic county of Kent, southeastern England. Its cathedral has been the primary ecclesiastical centre of England since the early 7th century ce. The city, a district within the administrative county of Kent, includes...

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Please note that our editors may make some formatting changes or correct spelling or grammatical errors, and may also contact you if any clarifications are needed. Uh Oh There was a problem with your submission. Please try again later. Close Article Title: archbishop of Canterbury Website Name: Encyclopædia Britannica Date Published: March 25, 1999 URL: Access Date: January 20, 2017 Share CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Canterbury Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > C > Canterbury Canterbury Help support New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download . Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99... (CANTUARIA—Roman name, DUROVERNUM, whence, in Anglo-Saxon times, DUROVERNIA; canonical name CANTUARIENSIS). The Ancient Diocese of Canterbury was the Mother-Church and Primatial See of All England , from 597 till the death of the last Catholic Archbishop , Cardinal Pole , in 1558. Foundation of the see When St. Augustine was sent to evangelize England by St.

Gregory the Great , he found an opening for his labours in the fact that Æthelburga, or Bertha , Queen of Æthelberht, King of Kent, was a Christian and a disciple of St. Gregory of Tours . This led him to Canterbury, where he converted the king and many thousands of Saxons in 597, the very year of his landing. Though St. Gregory had planned the division of England into two archbishoprics, one at London and one at York , St. Augustine's success at Canterbury explains how the southern archiepiscopal see came to be fixed there instead of at London . The first beginnings of the diocese are told by St. Bede (Hist. Eccl., I, xxxiii). "When Augustine , the first Archbishop of Canterbury, assumed the episcopal throne in that royal city, he recovered therein, by the King's assistance, a church which, as he was told, had been constructed by the original labour of Roman believers. This church he consecrated in the name of the Saviour, our God and Lord Jesus Christ , and there he established an habitation for himself and all his successors".

The archbishops There were in all sixty-eight archbishops during the period, just short of a thousand years, in which Canterbury was the chief Catholic see in England . In the following list the dates of some of the earlier prelates cannot be regarded as critically certain, but are those usually given. Those marked with an asterisk became cardinals . Reginald Pole *, 1556-1558. Of this list seventeen archbishops were recognized as saints , nine were cardinals , and twelve became Lord Chancellors of England . The full title of the archbishop was Primate of all England , Metropolitan of the Province, and Diocesan of the Diocese. In documents he was described as Archbishop providentia divina, instead of permissione divina, as was usual with other bishops . Metropolitan rights The organization of the province was, of course, a matter of gradual growth, and therefore the number and the names of the suffragan sees in the earlier periods vary very much, as does the extent of the metropolitan jurisdiction .

At the height of its power Canterbury counted seventeen suffragan sees : Bangor, Bath and Wells , Chichester , Coventry and Lichfield, Ely , Exeter , Hereford , Llandaff , Lincoln, London, Norwich , Rochester, St. Asaph , St. David's, Salisbury , Winchester , and Worcester . To these were added five of the six sees founded under Henry VIII in 1541 and afterwards recognized by the Holy See under Mary (1553-1558), viz., Bristol , Gloucester, Oxford , Peterborough , and Westminster. Several of these bishops acted on state occasions as the curia of the archbishop . Thus the Bishop of London acted as his dean; Winchester was his chancellor; Lincoln his vice-chancellor; Salisbury his precentor ; Worcester his chaplain ; and Rochester his cross-bearer. Even the Archbishop of York was not exempt from his jurisdiction , and these metropolitan rights also extended to Irish bishops (see Wharton, "Anglia Sacra", for instances) and to the clergy of Normandy, Gascony, and Aquitaine, as long as these provinces formed part of the English dominions.

The archbishop enjoyed perpetual legatine power, being Apostolicae Sedis legatus natus, and in councils abroad he took precedence of other archbishops , having the right to a special place "at the Pope's right foot". In England he was the ordinary of the royal court, wherever held, and the king and queen were regarded as his parishioners. He had the right of crowning and anointing the sovereign, a privilege confirmed by a Bull of Alexander III . He was the first peer of the realm, with precedence over all dukes not of the blood royal. He had the right of confirming the election of all suffragan bishops , and of consecrating them, and in the case of Rochester he enjoyed the patronage of the see , having the nomination of the bishop and the right to the temporalities during all vacancies. He also possessed many churches and parishes in the dioceses of London , Winchester , Norwich , Lincoln, Chichester , and Rochester. There were over eighty such benefices , all of which were exempt from the jurisdiction of their proper bishops and subject to him. The archbishop alone had the right of summoning a provincial synod.

The diocese The diocese itself was not of great extent, consisting only of part of the County of Kent. There were 257 parishes , and only one archdeaconry for the whole diocese. The archbishop's palace was at Canterbury on the west side of the cathedral . The archbishop owned more than twenty manors in Kent alone, including the castle of Saltwood. The London residence, in later times, was at the Manor of Lambeth, while Otford was the most favoured country seat. The cathedral The consecration by St. Augustine of an existing Roman basilica has been described in the words of the Ven. Bede . This building, with additions and alterations, continued until 1067, when, with the adjacent monastery , it was destroyed by fire. In 1070 Lanfranc began to rebuild it on a considerable scale, but no trace of his work remains visible. But the present nave and western towers still rest on his foundations, and in fact the existing cathedral covers as nearly as possible the same ground, with the addition of the retro-choir. Parts of the crypt and some of the monastery ruins also belong to his period.

A new choir, afterwards known as the "glorious choir of Conrad", was begun in 1096, finished in 1130, and burnt in 1174, though two chapels and part of the crypt survive. The present choir, begun by William of Sens and continued by William the Englishman, was finished in 1184, and is the earliest specimen of Transitional architecture, as well as being the longest choir in England (180 feet). In 1378 Lanfranc's nave was pulled down, and the present nave was begun by Prior Chillendon. At the same date the chapter house and the cloisters were finished. Finally the cathedral was completed, about 1495, by the erection of the great central tower 235 feet high. The total length of the cathedral is 522 feet, the breadth of the nave and aisles 71 feet. The building illustrates in itself almost all the varieties of Gothic, though Early English and Perpendicular predominate. History of the see Before England had acquired national unity, the foundation of the see had given it ecclesiastical unity.

Older than any national institution, its history is inseparably bound up with that of the country, and the barest outline exceeds our space. The formation of the diocese was monastic, taking its rise from the Monastery of Christ Church, and the ecclesiastical organization grew by means of the great religious houses at Dover, Lyminge, Folkestone, Minster in Sheppy, Minster in Thanet, Reculver, and the great rival monastery in Canterbury of Sts. Peter and Paul, afterwards St. Augustine's. Throughout the subsequent history the archbishops could not deal with archiepiscopal property without the concurrence of the monastic chapter, and the efforts of the archbishops to rid themselves of the control of the Canterbury monks gave rise to the frequent disputes between prelate and chapter that recur throughout the history of the diocese . From these foundations as centres the parochial system gradually spread. Another characteristic was the purely Roman character of the Church in Kent. It was free from all such conflicts with Celtic Christianity as took place in the North, and in liturgy it never developed a local use, but followed the Roman Rite that St. Augustine had introduced.

The first five archbishops were all Romans, St. Deusdedit being the first Englishman to rule the see . He was succeeded by St. Theodore, a Greek, one of the greatest of the archbishops , who travelled throughout England , and organized the primatial power and metropolitan jurisdiction . He was followed by a line of monastic prelates , chiefly local administrators. Under one of these, Jaernbehrt (766-790), during the supremacy of Mercia, the very primacy was threatened by the establishment of an Archbishopric of Lichfield , but this did not last. After Alfred's time came several archbishops translated from other sees, and bringing wider knowledge , so that the see grew in authority until it rose to its height during the episcopate of St. Dunstan , whose genius marked an epoch in diocesan , as in national, history. Under him the influence of Canterbury was felt throughout the land. While relying chiefly on the work of the greater monasteries , he also encouraged the secular clergy , whose parochial settlements always followed the missionary work begun from the houses of the regulars. St.

Ælphege, murdered by the Danes in 1012, added the glory of martyrdom to the chair of Canterbury. The last of the Saxon prelates was Stigand, regarded as uncanonical because he had received his pallium from an antipope , and he was finally dispossessed by William the Conqueror in 1070. Until this time there had been a sort of auxiliary bishop , or choriepiscopus, with the title "Bishop of St. Martin's", who held the church of that name at Canterbury, and whenever the bishop was absent filled his place. The last of these prelates was Godwin, who died in 1065. The new archbishop , Lanfranc , refused to continue the arrangement. Lanfranc introduced the prebendal system at Canterbury, and reorganized the arrangement of property , dividing off that of the archbishop from that of the monastery , with the result that from that time the close bond that had previously existed between them disappeared. Thenceforth, too, the Archbishops of Canterbury became absorbed in the wider duties of primate , as is seen in the episcopate of St.

Anselm , who contested with the king the rights of the Church involved in the question of investitures. The widened sphere of archiepiscopal activity was signalized when the pope appointed Theobald (1139-1161) as legatus natus. He was succeeded by St. Thomas of Canterbury , whose long struggle was crowned by martyrdom in 1170. Henceforth Canterbury, as the place of his shrine, entered on new glories, becoming famous through all Christendom for the miracles wrought at the tomb , the devotion of the pilgrims , and the splendour of the shrine. The next archbishop , Richard, had to maintain the primacy of Canterbury against the claims of York, the question being finally compromised by the pope , who gave York the title "Primate of England " and Canterbury that of " Primate of All England ". Succeeding archbishops played prominent parts as statesmen, notably Hubert Walter and Stephen Langton, the latter taking the leading part in obtaining Magna Charta from King John. Endless disputes with the monks and fruitless struggles against papal exactions and royal abuses marked the short and unhappy episcopate of St.

Edmund of Canterbury (1234-1240), the last of the canonized archbishops . From his time to the Reformation the archbishops were men distinguished in many ways, under whom the privileges and power of the diocese were constantly increased. The tradition was not reversed till the time of Cranmer, who, like his predecessors, received his pallium from the pope , but considered that he held the archbishopric from the king. Having broken his own vow of celibacy , he easily divorced the king from Queen Catherine. He allowed the shrine of St. Thomas to be desecrated and plundered in 1538, and in 1541 he ordered the tombs of all the canonized archbishops to be destroyed. Most of the property of the see he was forced to surrender to the king. In 1539 the two great monasteries of Christ Church and St. Augustine's had been suppressed, and their property seized. By his office Cranmer was the head of the Church in England , but under Henry he helped to despoil it, and under Edward he led the reforming party against it, abolishing the Mass, and stripping the churches.

The spiritual and material ruin thus accomplished could not be effectually remedied during the brief episcopate of Cardinal Pole (1556-1558). This prelate did all that was possible in so short a time, but his death, which took place on the 17th of November, 1558, brought to a close the line of Catholic archbishops . With the accession of Elizabeth—which took place on the same day—the new state of things, which has continued to the present time, was begun. Canterbury, as a city, has never recovered from the loss of St. Thomas's shrine and the destruction of the two great monasteries , but the cathedral still remains, one of the finest buildings in the country, as a witness to its former glory. The arms of the see were: Sapphire, an episcopal staff in pale, Topaz, and ensigned with a cross patee Pearl, surmounted of a pall of the last, charged with four crosses, formee, fitchee, Diamond, edged and fringed as the second.

Cathedral History – Canterbury Cathedral Home » Heritage » Cathedral History menu » The Cathedral is often described as ‘England in stone’ as its history is intrinsically linked to the country’s history. From its first Archbishop, Augustine, who established Christianity in England to Archbishop Langton’s role in the Magna Carta negotiations and the power struggle between King Henry II and Archbishop Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral’s history is as rich as it comes. CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Augustine of Canterbury Home > Catholic Encyclopedia > A > St. Augustine of Canterbury St. Augustine of Canterbury Help support New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download . Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more  all for only $19.99... First Archbishop of Canterbury , Apostle of the English; date of birth unknown; d. 26 May, 604. Symbols : cope, pallium , and mitre as Bishop of Canterbury , and pastoral staff and gospels as missionary. Nothing is known of his youth except that he was probably a Roman of the better class, and that early in life he become a monk in the famous monastery of St.

Andrew erected by St. Gregory out of his own patrimony on the Cælian Hill. It was thus amid the religious intimacies of the Benedictine Rule and in the bracing atmosphere of a recent foundation that the character of the future missionary was formed. Chance is said to have furnished the opportunity for the enterprise which was destined to link his name for all time with that of his friend and patron, St. Gregory , as the "true beginner" of one of the most important Churches in Christendom and the medium by which the authority of the Roman See was established over men of the English-speaking race. It is unnecessary to dwell here upon Bede's well-known version of Gregory's casual encounter with English slaves in the Roman market place (H.E., II, i), which is treated under GREGORY THE GREAT . Some five years after his elevation to the Roman See (590) Gregory began to look about him for ways and means to carry out the dream of his earlier days. He naturally turned to the community he had ruled more than a decade of years before in the monastery on the Cælian Hill. Out of these he selected a company of about forty and designated Augustine, at that time Prior of St.

Andrew's, to be their representative and spokesman. The appointment, as will appear later on, seems to have been of a somewhat indeterminate character; but from this time forward until his death in 604 it is to Augustine as "strengthened by the confirmation of the blessed Father Gregory (roboratus confirmatione beati patris Gregorii, Bede , H. E., I, xxv) that English, as distinguished from British , Christianity owes its primary inspiration. The event which afforded Pope Gregory the opportunity he had so long desired of carrying out his great missionary plan in favour of the English happened in the year 595 or 596. A rumour had reached Rome that the pagan inhabitants of Britain were ready to embrace the Faith in great numbers, if only preachers could be found to instruct them. The first plan which seems to have occurred to the pontiff was to take measures for the purchase of English captive boys of seventeen years of age and upwards. These he would have brought up in the Catholic Faith with idea of ordaining them and sending them back in due time as apostles to their own people.

He according wrote to Candidus, a presbyter entrusted with the administration of a small estate belonging to the patrimony of the Roman Church in Gaul , asking him to secure revenues and set them aside for this purpose. (Greg., Epp., VI, vii in Migne , P.L., LXXVII.) It is possible, not only to determine approximately the dates of these events, but also to indicate the particular quarter of Britain from which the rumour had come. Aethelberht became King of Kent in 559 or 560, and in less than twenty years he succeeded in establishing an overlordship that extended from the boulders of the country of the West Saxons eastward to the sea and as far north as the Humber and the Trent. The Saxons of Middlesex and of Essex, together with the men of East Anglia and of Mercia, were thus brought to acknowledge him as Bretwalda, and he acquired a political importance which began to be felt by the Frankish princes on the other side of the Channel.

Charibert of Paris gave him his daughter Bertha in marriage, stipulating, as part of the nuptial agreement, that she should be allowed the free exercise of her religion. The condition was accepted (Bede, H. E., I, xxv) and Luidhard, a Frankish bishop , accompanied the princess to her new home in Canterbury , where the ruined church of St. Martin, situated a short distance beyond the walls, and dating from Roman-British times, was set apart for her use (Bede, H. E., I, xxvi). The date of this marriage, so important in its results to the future fortunes of Western Christianity , is of course largely a matter of conjecture; but from the evidence furnished by one or two scattered remarks in St. Gregory's letters (Epp., VI) and from the circumstances which attended the emergence of the kingdom of the Jutes to a position of prominence in the Britain of this period, we may safely assume that it had taken place fully twenty years before the plan of sending Augustine and his companions suggested itself to the pope . The pope was obliged to complain of the lack of episcopal zeal among Aethelberht Christian neighbours.

Whether we are to understand the phrase ex vicinis (Greg., Epp., VI) as referring to Gaulish prelates or to the Celtic bishops of northern and western Britain, the fact remains that neither Bertha's piety , nor Luidhard's preaching, nor Aethelberht's toleration, nor the supposedly robust faith of British or Gaulish neighbouring peoples was found adequate to so obvious an opportunity until a Roman pontiff , distracted with the cares of a world supposed to be hastening to its eclipse, first exhorted forty Benedictines of Italian blood to the enterprise. The itinerary seem to have been speedily, if vaguely, prepared; the little company set out upon their long journey in the month of June, 596. They were armed with letters to the bishops and Christian princes of the countries through which they were likely to pass, and they were further instructed to provide themselves with Frankish interpreters before setting foot in Britain itself. Discouragement, however, appears early to have overtaken them on their way. Tales of the uncouth islanders to whom they were going chilled their enthusiasm, and some of their number actually proposed that they should draw back.

Augustine so far compromised with the waverers that he agreed to return in person to Pope Gregory and lay before him plainly the difficulties which they might be compelled to encounter. The band of missionaries waited for him in the neighbourhood of Aix-en-Provence. Pope Gregory , however, raised the drooping spirits of Augustine and sent him back without delay to his faint-hearted brethren, armed with more precise, and as it appeared, more convincing authority. Augustine was named abbot of the missionaries (Bede, H. E., I, xxiii) and was furnished with fresh letters in which the pope made kindly acknowledgment of the aid thus far offered by Protasius, Bishop of Aix -en-Provence, by Stephen, Abbot of Lérins, and by a wealthy lay official of patrician rank called Arigius [Greg., Epp., VI (indic. xiv) num. 52 sqq.;sc. 3,4,5 of the Benedictine series]. Augustine must have reached Aix on his return journey some time in August; for Gregory's message of encouragement to the party bears the date of July the twenty-third, 596.

Whatever may have been the real source of the passing discouragement no more delays are recorded. The missionaries pushed on through Gaul, passing up through the valley of the Rhone to Arles on their way to Vienne and Autun, and thence northward, by one of several alternatives routes which it is impossible now to fix with accuracy, until they come to Paris . Here, in all probability, they passed the winter months; and here, too, as is not unlikely, considering the relations that existed between the family of the reigning house and that of Kent, they secured the services of the local presbyters suggested as interpreters in the pope's letters to Theodoric and Theodebert and to Brunichilda, Queen of the Franks . In the spring of the following year they were ready to embark. The name of the port at which they took ship has not been recorded. Boulogne was at that time a place of some mercantile importance; and it is not improbable that they directed their steps thither to find a suitable vessel in which they could complete the last and not least hazardous portion of their journey. All that we know for certain is that they landed somewhere on the Isle of Thanet (Bede, H.

E., I, xxv) and that they waited there in obedience to King Aethelberht orders until arrangements could be made for a formal interview. The king replied to their messengers that he would come in person from Canterbury , which was less than a dozen miles away. It is not easy to decide at this date between the four rival spots, each of which has claimed the distinction of being the place upon which St. Augustine and his companions first set foot. The Boarded Groin, Stonar, Ebbsfleet, and Richborough  last named, if the present course of the Stour has not altered in thirteen hundred years, then forming part of the mainland  each has its defenders. The curious in such matters may consult the special literature on the subject cited at the close of this article. The promised interview between the king and the missionaries took place within a few days. It was held in the open air, sub divo, says Bede (Bede, H.E., I, xxv), on a level spot, probably under a spreading oak in deference to the king's dread of Augustine's possible incantations.

His fear, however, was dispelled by the native grace of manner and the kindly personality of his chief guest who addressed him through an interpreter. The message told "how the compassionate Jesus had redeemed a world of sin by His own agony and opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all who would believe" ( Aelfric , ap. Haddan and Stubbs, III, ii). The king's answer, while gracious in its friendliness, was curiously prophetic of the religious after-temper of his race. "Your words and promised are very fair" he is said to have replied, "but as they are new to us and of uncertain import, I cannot assent to them and give up what I have long held in common with the whole English nation. But since you have come as strangers from so great a distance, and, as I take it, are anxious to have us also share in what you conceive to be both excellent and true , we will not interfere with you, but receive you, rather, in kindly hospitality and take care to provide what may be necessary for your support. Moreover, we make no objection to your winning as many converts as you can to your creed".

(Bede, H.E., I, xxv.) The king more than made good his words. He invited the missionaries to take up their abode in the royal capital of Canterbury , then a barbarous and half-ruined metropolis , built by the Kentish folk upon the site of the old Roman military town of Durovernum. In spite of the squalid character of the city, the monks must have made an impressive picture as they drew near the abode "over against the King.' Street facing the north", a detail preserved in William Thorne's (c. 1397) "Chronicle of the Abbots of St. Augustine's Canterbury," p. 1759, assigned them for a dwelling.

The striking circumstances of their approach seem to have lingered long in popular remembrance; for Bede , writing fully a century and a third after the event, is at pains to describe how they came in characteristic Roman fashion (more suo) bearing "the holy cross together with a picture of the Sovereign King, Our Lord Jesus Christ and chanting in unison this litany", as they advanced: "We beseech thee, O Lord, in the fulness of thy pity that Thine anger and Thy holy wrath be turned away from this city and from Thy holy house, because we have sinned : Alleluia !" It was an anthem out of one of the many "Rogation" litanies then beginning to be familiar in the churches of Gaul and possibly not unknown also at Rome .

(Martène, "De antiquis Ecclesiae ritibus", 1764, III, 189; Bede , "H.E.", II, xx; Joanes Diac., "De Vita Gregorii", II, 17 in Migne , P.L., LXXXV; Duchesne's ed., "Liber Pontificalis" , II, 12.) The building set apart for their use must have been fairly large to afford shelter to a community numbering fully forty. It stood in the Stable Gate, not far from the ruins of an old heathen temple; and the tradition in Thorn's day was that the parish church of St. Alphage approximately marked the site (Chr. Aug. Abb., 1759). Here Augustine and his companions seemed to have established without delay the ordinary routine of the Benedictine rule as practiced at the close of the sixth century; and to it they seem to have added in a quiet way the apostolic ministry of preaching. The church dedicated to St.

Martin in the eastern part of the city which had been set apart for the convenience of Bishop Luidhard and Queen Bertha's followers many years before was also thrown open to them until the king should permit a more highly organized attempt at evangelization. The evident sincerity of the missionaries, their single-mindedness, their courage under trial, and, above all, the disinterested character of Augustine himself and the unworldly note of his doctrine made a profound impression on the mind of the king. He asked to be instructed and his baptism was appointed to take place at Pentecost. Whether the queen and her Frankish bishop had any real hand in the process of this comparatively sudden conversion, it is impossible to say. St. Gregory's letter written to Bertha herself, when the news of the king's baptism had reached Rome , would lead us to infer, that, while little or nothing had been done before Augustine's arrival, afterwards there was an endeavor on the part of the queen to make up for past remissness. The pope writes: "Et quoniam, Deo volente, aptum nunc tempus est, agate, ut divina gratia co-operante, cum augmento possitis quod neglectum est reparare".

[Greg. Epp., XI (indic., iv), 29.] The remissness does seem to have been atoned for, when we take into account the Christian activity associated with the names of this royal pair during the next few months. Aethelberht's conversion naturally gave a great impetus to the enterprise of Augustine and his companions. Augustine himself determined to act at once upon the provisional instruction he had received from Pope Gregory . He crossed over to Gaul and sought episcopal consecration at the hands of Virgilius, the Metropolitan of Arles. Returning almost immediately to Kent, he made preparations for that more active and open form of propaganda for which Aethelberht's baptism had prepared a way. It is characteristic of the spirit which actuated Augustine and his companions that no attempt was made to secure converts on a large scale by the employment of force. Bede tells us that it was part of the king's uniform policy "to compel no man to embrace Christianity " (H. E., I, xxvi) and we know from more than one of his extant letters what the pope though of a method so strangely at variance with the teaching of the Gospels.

On Christmas Day , 597, more than ten thousand persons were baptized by the first "Archbishop of the English". The great ceremony probably took place in the waters of the Swale, not far from the mouth of the Medway. News of these extraordinary events was at once dispatched to the pope , who wrote in turn to express his joy to his friend Eulogius, Bishop of Alexandria, to Augustine himself, and to the king and queen. (Epp., VIII, xxx; XI, xxviii; ibid., lxvi; Bede , H. E., I, xxxi, xxxii.) Augustine's message to Gregory was carried by Lawrence the Presbyter, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury , and Peter one of the original colony of missionary monks . They were instructed to ask for more Gospel labourers, and, if we may trust Bede's account in this particular and the curious group of letters embodied in his narrative, they bore with them a list of dubia, or questions, bearing upon several points of discipline and ritual with regard to which Augustine awaited the pope's answer.

The genuineness of the document or libellus, as Bede calls it (H.E., II, i), in which the pope is alleged to have answered the doubts of the new archbishop has not been seriously called in question; though scholars have felt the force of the objection which St. Boniface , writing in the second quarter of the eighth century, urges, vis, that no trace of it could be found in the official collection of St. Gregory's correspondence preserved in the registry of the Roman Church .(Haddan and Stubbs, III, 336; Dudden, "Gregory the Great", II, 130, note; Mason, "Mission of St. Augustine", preface, pp. viii and ix; Duchesne, "Origines", 3d ed., p. 99, note.) It contains nine responsa, the most important of which are those that touch upon the local differences of ritual, the question of jurisdiction , and the perpetually recurring problem of marriage relationships.

"Why", Augustine had asked "since the faith is one, should there be different usages in different churches; one way of saying Mass in the Roman Church , for instance, and another in the Church of Gaul ?" The pope's reply is, that while "Augustine is not to forget the Church in which he has been brought up", he is at liberty to adopt from the usage of other Churches whatever is most likely to prove pleasing to Almighty God . "For institutions", he adds, "are not to be loved for the sake of places; but places, rather, for the sake of institutions". With regard to the delicate question of jurisdiction Augustine is informed that he is to exercise no authority over the churches of Gaul; but that "all the bishops of Britain are entrusted to him, to the end that the unlearned may be instructed, the wavering strengthened by persuasion and the perverse corrected with authority". [Greg., Epp., XI (indic., iv), 64; Bede , H. E., I, xxvii.] Augustine seized the first convenient opportunity to carry out the graver provisions of this last enactment. He had already received the pallium on the return of Peter and Lawrence from Rome in 601.

The original band of missionaries had also been reinforced by fresh recruits, among whom "the first and most distinguished" as Bede notes, "were Mellitus , Justus, Paulinus, and Ruffinianus". Of these Ruffinianus was afterwards chosen abbot of the monastery established by Augustine in honour of St. Peter outside the eastern walls of the Kentish capital. Mellitus became the first English Bishop of London ; Justus was appointed to the new see of Rochester, and Paulinus became the Metropolitan of York. Aethelberht, as Bretwalda, allowed his wider territory to be mapped out into dioceses , and exerted himself in Augustine's behalf to bring about a meeting with the Celtic bishops of Southern Britain. The conference took place in Malmesbury, on the borders of Wessex, not far from the Severn, at a spot long described in popular legend as Austin's Oak. ( Bede , H.E., II, ii.) Nothing came of this attempt to introduce ecclesiastical uniformity. Augustine seems to have been willing enough to yield certain points; but on three important issues he would not compromise.

He insisted on an unconditional surrender on the Easter controversy ; on the mode of administering the Sacrament of Baptism ; and on the duty of taking active measures in concert with him for the evangelization of the Saxon conquerors. The Celtic bishops refused to yield, and the meeting was broken up. A second conference was afterwards planned at which only seven of the British bishops convened. They were accompanied this time by a group of their "most learned men" headed by Dinoth, the abbot of the celebrated monastery of Bangor-is-coed. The result was, if anything, more discouraging than before. Accusations of unworthy motives were freely bandied on both sides. Augustine's Roman regard for form, together with his punctiliousness for personal precedence as Pope Gregory's representative, gave umbrage to the Celts. They denounced the Archbishop for his pride , and retired behind their mountains. As they were on the point of withdrawing, they heard the only angry threat that is recorded of the saint : "If ye will not have peace with the brethren, ye shall have war from your enemies; and if ye will not preach the way of life to the English, ye shall suffer the punishment of death at their hands".

Popular imagination , some ten years afterwards, saw a terrible fulfilment of the prophecy in the butchery of the Bangor monks at the hands of Aethelfrid the Destroyer in the great battle won by him at Chester in 613. These efforts toward Catholic unity with the Celtic bishops and the constitution of a well-defined hierarchy for the Saxon Church are the last recorded acts of the saint's life. His death fell in the same year says a very early tradition (which can be traced back to Archbishop Theodore's time) as that of his beloved father and patron, Pope Gregory . Thorn, however, who attempts always to give the Canterbury version of these legends, asserts  somewhat inaccurately, it would appear, if his coincidences be rigorously tested  that it took place in 605. He was buried , in true Roman fashion, outside the walls of the Kentish capital in a grave dug by the side of the great Roman road which then ran from Deal to Canterbury over St. Martin's Hill and near the unfinished abbey church which he had begun in honour of Sts. Peter and Paul and which was afterwards to be dedicated to his memory.

When the monastery was completed, his relics were translated to a tomb prepared for them in the north porch . A modern hospital is said to occupy the site of his last resting place. [Stanley, "Memorials of Canterbury" (1906), 38.] His feast day in the Roman Calendar is kept on 28 May; but in the proper of the English office it occurs two days earlier, the true anniversary of his death .

Question: Who is credited with being the first Archbishop of Canterbury?
Answer: AUGUSTINE